Chernihiv city council denied access to information for local blogger

In Chernihiv city council, the request of local blogger and civil activist Oleksandr Hashpar to provide him the minutes of the session of city development council, was denied. The reason given for this was the vacations of the officials of the council that need to sign the minutes. This information was reported by IMI representative in Chernihivska oblast. IMI media lawyer Maksym Ratushnyi considers such denial ungrounded. According to him, the responses to the information requests can be delayed (based on aricle 20 of the relevant Law) only in case where such response requires collection and preparation involving processing of a considerable amount of data. Vacations of officials is not a valid reason for delaying the response. As IMI representative mentioned, Oleksandr Hashpar requested an information of considerable significance for the society. The session in question was considering all drafts of city development documentations and some construction and reconstruction projects on the territory of Chernihiv city. Hashpar is a well-known local blogger who exposes corruption schemes in local governmental agencies. He says that his request was denied because of personal grudges of city council officials against him.